Alone
by Peace and Ninjas
Summary: Oneshot. Otonashi is left behind by the rest of the SSS and is forced to cope with the aftermath. Basically the in-between from the ending of Angel Beats to Another Epilogue (the OVA). One OC.


**A/N**: If this is terribly OOC I apologize in advance. There is one OC in here (a horribly developed one at that) but I hope ya'll enjoy it regardless. Reviews are welcome, stab at it all you want.

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_Kanade. _She was out of this world, gone from his life at the empty battlefront.

_Kanade._ She was probably living happily, with a brand new heart and body and soul with just the faintest recollection of him – and he couldn't feel her slight body anymore, couldn't see her golden eyes, couldn't smell the scent of her hair and uniform, couldn't hear her soft, sweet voice that left the lingering memory of gratitude – and Otonashi screamed.

_Kanade._

His cries tore through the silent school campus. His fists slammed against the ground again and again and again, violently denying his abandonment, his fury and anguish and terror of being left _alone_. There was nothing left but himself in a wasteland of hard-forgotten friendships, memories forged on bloodied grounds. Pain and failure broke the rhythm of his sobs, his tie suffocating around his throat. Otonashi's heart was already gone; if he could lose his soul this is what he thought it must be like.

Eventually his voice was ripped from him, his mouth bitter and dry. Otonashi could barely form any saliva to swallow, his lips still whispering no over and over. When his hands started bleeding from striking the stone so many times, he didn't notice. Nothing mattered besides him and his solitude and everyone graduating and moving on – everyone but him. And Otonashi wondered if he truly wasn't meant to pass on. He collapsed against the ground, utterly drained and dead but somehow alive. Staring at the grass and trees, he watched as their shadows grew longer and longer, until they turned darker and darker, and then Otonashi was abandoned by the sunlight. He cursed the black and rolled over, numb to the cold. A night came and went by, and it could have been a minute for Otonashi. He didn't know the difference anymore.

Waking up was like being plunged in cold water. The light washed over Otonashi, refusing to allow him to fall back asleep, to become oblivious to his pain again. It must have been around noon by the time he finally summoned enough strength to move into a crawling position, and another hour passed before he could even stand. If he was stuck in this god-forsaken world, he still needed to eat. Otonashi briefly wondered if dying of hunger here would be an endless cycle of death then revival and death again.

He thought about going to the meeting room, to the Guild, to Kanade's room. At the thought of her he almost lost it again. Swallowing thickly, Otonashi sighed and returned to the school.

Stumbling up the stairs and back into the gym, Otonashi nearly collapsed as he saw the graduation banner, looked at the five empty chairs, remembering everything of yesterday. He kicked his chair and it slammed into the stage, leaving dents and crashing into the floor with a clang. Stunned by his outburst of rage, Otonashi meandered into the vacant hallway and somehow found the vending machines a few floors up. Several posters promoting Girls Dead Monster still decorated the windows and walls, their edges curling.

Fishing through his pocket for change, Otonashi sighed when he felt nothing but empty fabric. His fingers knit together, a tight fist forming in sudden anger. As he slammed it against the thick glass of the vending machine, Otonashi desperately wondered where this anger was coming from.

Kanade had left him, left him behind to deal with this decrepit world. Yuri, his first friend here, was somewhere living a better life with new siblings and no memory of the Barnacle or Not Yet Dead or Afterlife Battlefront or whatever it would be called now. Everyone that he'd come to know and love and cherish was having a better life, everyone but him – and it was all his fault. For coming and helping them move on, and he was stuck with their memories and their former lives and he couldn't get it out of his head.

It would be okay if he wasn't alone; by himself he would have rather died. Unfortunately death was impossible. He was suddenly really damn thirsty. Really damn tired. Really just done. His jaw tightened and his whole body stiffened, frozen.

Somehow the glass to the vending machine lay broken at his feet, his right hand white from clutching a chair and a drink in the other. He made his way outside, the breeze whipping his bangs into his face. Leaning against the balcony, Otonashi downed the entire can in the space of two gulps, threw it away, and immediately went back and grabbed three more. He dangled the last one over the edge of the roof, tapping it with his finger before releasing it and watched it bounce once, twice, three times off the wall and heard its clang echo around the empty campus. Otonashi thought that it might not be so bad to follow it.

Running a hand through his hair, Otonashi shook his head and sighed. Thoughts like that were extremely dangerous. After all, God had given him a fulfilling life; given him what he'd truly wanted – to be able to help others, in life or the afterlife. And Otonashi supposed he'd gotten that, and couldn't condemn God as being unfair. The irony of his situation stung him like a slap to the face. Too bad he was a doctor whose patients had all died, then reincarnated into a better existence. The problem was, he could never cure himself. The gap in his chest where his heart had literally been ripped out had long been healed, but Otonashi still felt like his body was being cut open. He wondered if such a pain could ever fade. It couldn't possibly be worse than dying in this world. But then again, you never really could die here.

A long, elegant leg swung over the railing to the balcony. The second followed a moment, later, and two hands gripped the railing, trembling with fear and a nervous excitement. Otonashi squinted in the brightness, the glare of the metal can reflecting back at him from the far, far ground. He shivered in anticipation. Sucking in a deep breath, Otonashi closed his eyes and leaned forward ever so slightly. It was anti-cliché but he imagined that physical pain would hurt a thousand times more than emotional pain.

In the end, letting go was easier than he thought.

Unfortunately, the downside to being alone was that nobody bothered to take you to the infirmary.  
Otonashi made the attempt to describe his pain, i.e. being flattened by a tractor, beaten up by Chuck Norris, being castrated, but in reality the pain was finite. After a day of roasting from the sun, Otonashi was well enough to crawl back to his feet and walk all the way back up to the balcony.

It was a pity heart pain never ended. Kanade was still gone. Falling off a roof couldn't, wouldn't change that. And yet Otonashi still grabbed a drink, drank and dropped it, and followed. Some crazy part of him thought he'd be able to kill his sorrow with physical pain, that his life here would end if he died enough times.

It was his pathetic lifestyle for days, weeks, months, he didn't know. The vending machine somehow never ran out of drinks, the ground never gave out. Obviously. And yet Otonashi was still alone. Horribly, devastatingly alone.

It wasn't for a long time until somebody finally showed up. Otonashi spotted her from his ritual balcony view, his eyes disbelieving at first. When he thought about it, he was the last one to appear at the battlefront before everyone passed on. He nearly tripped down the stairs in his haste and had to adjust his clothing before stepping out the doors of the school.

"Hi, I'm Yuzuru Otonashi. Welcome to the Graduation Battlefront." He held out a hand, his smile inviting. The girl turned around in surprise, her long, silver hair flowing behind her. Confusion lit her amber eyes.

"Hello. My name is…is…Reiko…Where am I?" The girl took the hand and gave it an uncertain shake.

Otonashi stared at her, brows knit together, stuttering, "Reiko? 'Gratitude'? That's a nice name. Pleased to meet you. Listen, come with me, we'll sit down and I'll explain everything."

They walked to the place where Otonashi first appeared into the world, and the pair ended up sitting at a bench near the fountain where he'd first died. The sun was settling into a comfortable slouch in the sky as late afternoon approached.

"Okay. I'll just, uh, start out with the truth I guess. You're dead. Sorry. But you had something that you wished you could have done, in your past life, when you were alive. Maybe you had an unfair life that you wanted more out of. Maybe you were killed too soon. I don't know, I guess we'll come back to that. But, uh, anyways, that's what I'm here for. I'm here to help you make peace with your past life, so you can pass on into the real afterlife. So you can be reborn as a new soul into the world again." Otonashi bit his lip and looked down. "So, any thoughts?"

"Um, yes...wow…this is all really confusing…Well…" Reiko spoke hesitantly. She tugged at her pants, tension lacing her small frame.

"It's kind of a lot to absorb, I know. I felt like that when I first came here too."

"It's just so…surreal. I always knew I would die but…I didn't think I would come to a place like this," she murmured. "I don't understand. I thought…I thought my life was pretty fulfilling, even though I couldn't live for very long."

"Uh huh…okay…I don't mean to pry or anything, but, do you remember how you died?"

"Leukemia. Doctors said I had three months to live when I was diagnosed. My family was always pretty poor, so they didn't know about the disease until it was too late." She was quiet for a while. Absentmindedly, Reiko began whistling softly in the silence. Otonashi jerked forward from the bench, disbelief in his eyes.

"Reiko…how do you know that tune…?"

"It's a song my sister was always humming. I never knew where it came from; when I asked her she just said, 'It's My Song' and that was that. Why do you ask?"

"It's – it's nothing. Just, uh, keep going. Whenever you're ready."

Otonashi scrunched his brows in thought and bided his time, waiting for her to speak again. Several minutes passed before Reiko spoke again.

"By the time I only had about three weeks left, I'd already accepted my fate. I wasn't upset with God, with what had happened. Before I had leukemia nobody really spared me a second glance; it was like I wasn't even there. But people would actually acknowledge me once I was sick. Even if it was only with pity at least they saw me." A tear trickled down Reiko's cheek, and she took a shaky breath. She opened her mouth to say more, but was too choked up to relate any more about her life.

Crying girls were never Otonashi's strong suit. But he took a leap of faith anyway and gently wrapped his arms over the younger girl's frame. She began sobbing into his chest, great heaving tremors wracking her body.

"Hey, hey, it's okay," he murmured.

They remained like that for a few minutes, and gradually Reiko's tears faded. Once she had control over herself again, she jerked out of Otonashi's embrace and blushed furiously, eyes still burning.

"Sorry…I'm, I'm really sorry about that…" she muttered.

"Don't be, it's fine, really," Otonashi put a hand on her shoulder and smiled. "Do you…do you want to keep going?"

"Yeah, yeah, I should, right? I was just…shaken up, I guess. I never stopped to think about how I felt about my sickness too much, I slept most of the time anyway. I was too tired to try and contemplate my life." Reiko turned and sighed. "I'm sorry I started crying…partially because talking about my sickness brought back bad memories of loneliness…partially too, well, it's just that you remind me a lot of my older sister."

"Really? What was she like?"

"She was the best sister in the whole world." A dreamy look came over Reiko's face, and she beamed wistfully at the sky. "People always said I looked just like her when she was younger. When I got sick, she was the one that visited me every day. My parents had to work and my little brother wasn't old enough to understand that I couldn't come home, not for a while. She always brought me these great big journals for me to write in, to write about a better life where I wasn't sick and we could all be one happy family. She was an angel to me." Reiko looked down and blinked back tears again.

Otonashi sucked in a slow breath. A sister that looked like Reiko? He was pulled out of his thoughts when Reiko resumed talking.

"The thing is, my sister never let me say thank you to her. That always made me really sad, because I could never pay her back for everything she'd done for me. She'd always shake her head and smile at me when I tried to thank her, saying that it was her job to take care of her little sister, always. Instead she always thanked me, thanked me for being strong and giving her strength in med school. I don't think she really understood how I felt, even though she was always there for me when I was too sick to move or when I was really sad."

"I don't think that's it…" Otonashi said, and Reiko glanced at him, surprised. "What – what I mean is, I don't think it was that your sister didn't _want_ you to thank her. She probably just found it too painful to acknowledge that you were sick, and didn't want to always think of you as her sick little sister."

"Yeah, maybe…but the reason why my sister was the best was because she never treated me like anything _less_ than a person. She was always alive and vibrant when she was with me, smiling and playing piano for me. The doctors let her bring a small electronic one into my room; they all believed it would help me feel better. And it really did. She played for me every day, finding new songs every week for me to listen to or sing along with. When other people were in the room with us, she wouldn't act any differently when talking to them or to me, so it wasn't so awkward for everybody. That's why I said you reminded me of her, because you don't act like I'll fall apart if you breathe on me. You treat me like I'm worth something."

Otonashi was silent at this. He couldn't get the image of his own sister out of his head, her smile flashing at him from the bedside. His heart ached even worse. Not to mention the clues hinting towards Kanade…he refused to indulge in such a fantasy. He realized with a start he'd zoned out and was no longer paying attention to what Reiko was saying.

"…So thank you, Otonashi. Really, from the bottom of my heart, I'm grateful that you've listened to me. Even if we only met for a short while." Reiko stood and gave a warm smile to him.

Practically leaping to his feet, Otonashi blinked and asked, "What do you mean?"

"Well, you said you were here to help me pass on, right? By coming to terms with my past life?"

"Yeah, but – wait. Are you saying that..."

"Yes, I think I've been able to accept how I lived. Because you didn't treat me differently from other people; because you acknowledged me for who am I without tiptoeing around me and hiding facts. I think I know what it means to be treated like a real human being now." Reiko earnestly grinned at him. "So thank you. Thank you so much, Otonashi. I just wish my sister, Angel, could have met you."

Otonashi gasped and took a step forward.

"Until we meet again, in the next life. Thank you, Otonashi. Goodbye." Reiko waved and turned, and then she was gone.

And Otonashi was alone again. Physically alone, but spiritually, he'd been lifted up.

"Kanade…so you _were_ her sister…thank you, Kanade. Reiko… I promise I'll meet your sister someday."

Eventually, the school began filling up, too fast for Otonashi to keep up with. Explaining what this place was got too exhausting after the tenth or twentieth or thirtieth time. Resigning himself to become President of Student Council (Kanade would have been proud!), Otonashi was content to sit back and allow the NPCs experience the adolescence they should have had. To those that wanted to escape the cycle of school, he helped them graduate early. Every once in a while, he would be reminded of Reiko, and he remembered his promise to her. It was his duty to help the students here; it was also his duty to wait until God allowed him to leave.

And he _would_ wait. Someday he too would pass on; but until that day, he would wait for Kanade forever.


End file.
